Forever Autumn
by ALC Punk
Summary: She only thinks of him on the bad days. The days when everything she does is so utterly fruitless that things are set back by days. - Sam Carter wakes up in an alternate universe. Sam
1. Persistence of Memory

Disclaimer: Not mine. Rating: R. violence, sex. Set: Post season Eight, but only contains spoilers up to Affinity Pairing: Sam/Jack, some mention of Sam/Pete.  
Warning: this fic may contain any or all (or none) of the following: Action. Adventure. Sex. Porn. Gratuitous nipples. People making stupid jokes. Someone getting injured. Someone dying. Slash. Het. Both. None. Orgies. Violence that would make Freddy Krueger pale. Pop culture references that will confuse you. Please read at your own risk.  
Archive: SJFic yes, please. Anyone else, feel free.  
Notes: This has been sitting around waiting to get finished for a long time. A very long time. I'd like to thank Ryuu for putting up with my incessant whining and frequent "they won't play!" whimpering. A.j., for comforting Davis after a certain scene. Jara, for also putting up with me whining and moaning.  
Hrm. Think that's it. Oh! Several chapter titles are song lyrics. 'waking with the roaches' is The Cardigans. And 'Forever Autumn' is Justin Heywood of the Moody Blues. 

Forever Autumn

by ALC Punk!

Chapter One: Persistence of Memory

She only thinks of him on the bad days. The days when everything she does is so utterly fruitless that things are set back by days. Or weeks. Months. The days when one step forward is accompanied by twenty steps back. The days when she wants to sit in a corner and cry miserable tears of frustration and self-pity.

Then he's there in her thoughts, like a security blanket, like an icon she can cling to. He is something she can focus on outside of herself. And so she does.

She remembers his smiles and his smirks and the sarcasm that made her laugh inside when she was supposed to be staying oh so very dignified. His way of looking at the world and the decisions he had to make. Sometimes she remembers she didn't always agree with him.

On the days when it's really bad, when she forgets to eat lunch--and Janet's not around anymore, and that adds to it, because she can't ever talk to Janet again--and stayed up too late the night before and it's now half-past midnight... She thinks of different things. Of what it would have been like to have his fingers tangled in her hair, his lips sliding across her skin, his tongue--she always believed his tongue would be talented.

There are, sometimes, moments when she almost forgets him. Doesn't recall the way he'd saunter in, hands in pockets and fiddling with various objects on her desk. Doesn't miss the accidental swiping of half a dozen pens or the way he broke her laptop with Daniel's 'rock'--not that he hadn't apologized.

Half a dozen times she even realizes that she can't quite remember what he looks like.

Were his eyes dark brown or light brown? Were they really wrinkles or laugh lines.... Although she remembers he went silvery grey early on. She likes to blame that on Daniel.

The few times she's forgotten herself enough to mention him she gets sent to the psychs. And they tell her over and over that this fantasy man she keeps building has never existed. She knows they are lying. But there is no proof, no way of accessing the records she knows have to be out there.

And so she can never wave anything in their faces.

For in this reality, the one that she can't quite believe is real, Colonel Jack O'Neill has never existed.

There are no other changes. Dr. Daniel Jackson is here, he broke the last translation to start up the stargate. Teal'c is here, the ex-first prime of Apophis. Sometimes, she is almost certain they are lying when they smile at her.

General Hammond, Dr. Janet Fraiser... Well, not Dr. Fraiser of course.

But she had been here.

Careful questioning has turned up that a Colonel Johnathan O'Neil led the first Abydos mission. He was killed there and Dr. Daniel Jackson stayed. The rest, as they liked to say, was history.

She has a hard time accepting that the man she knew for nearly seven years has never existed.

But even now-Colonel Louis Feretti has no recollection of the man who saved the planet with his sometimes stupid plans half a dozen times. Or more. And none of them want to remember.

It scares her, at night. On those nights when it's been a bad day and she lets herself think about him.

They never seem to realize that she is not who they think she is. Not their Sam Carter, and she hopes their Sam Carter is all right, but she's more concerned about herself. Because if they haven't realized then she can't explain. And if she can't explain (they'd send her to the psychs again. Parallel dimensions don't exist, after all) then she can't go home.

And so she quietly works on quantum mirror theory when she's supposed to be taking downtime. Or sleeping. There are nights when she doesn't see the dawn because she's asleep on her laptop.

Pete isn't here.

It's weird, because with the way her life works, she would expect him to be. If Jack is not, then Pete.

I think therefore I have sex?

The irony would make her cry. She can't have one, and the other didn't want her.

Daniel says he broke up with her months before. When pressed, he looks annoyed and says that Pete hated her work hours. As if saving the world should only be a part-time job.

She wonders if she said something like that to him.

It's almost good to not have him, though. No worrying that he'll figure her out, that he'll know she's not who she claims to be. It's bad, too. There is no one to hold her on the cold nights when she huddles under way too many blankets and shivers.

A little human contact would be nice to alleviate the loneliness.

She doesn't sleep on those nights.

The psychs tried to tell her she was suffering from PTSD. No shit. She'd laughed in the last one's face and told him the moon was made of green cheese. That had sent him off (finally!) and General Hammond had agreed she didn't need to see them anymore.

Luckily, she was spared being subjected to MacKenzie. Although, with the way the universe seemed to be mocking her, he would be the one person who would have believed her.

She's not going to dwell on that.

Just like she's not going to dwell on the painful details of her nightmares.

She tries not to dream often, working herself into stupors of exhaustion that leave her feeling drugged when she awakes.

She can remember this, when he was trapped on Edora.

Nightmares that tormented and pulled at her. Blame and guilt and death. Paths not taken, words not spoken, actions...

Most nights, she doesn't have nightmares.

They're simply memories that aren't real anymore.

And then it happens.

Five months and three weeks after losing her mind (or her world, although the psychs are convinced it's her mind -- but she's too important for them to ground), she makes the break-through that she needs to.

It's not big. In fact, it's tiny and pathetic and she wants to bang her head on the desk. If Jack--if HE had been there, he would have pointed it out months ago. Her own hubris has always been to think of things in too complicated a manner.

But she's always been too complicated. That's always been her problem.

It really is quite simple.

She can't believe it took her this long. Really.

There is a quantum mirror in every reality. Just because this one hasn't discovered it doesn't mean it's not there. She knows where it is.

Now she just has to convince them to let her go there.

--

Two. Fucking. Months. And it was Daniel's saying the MALP data looked interesting that finally tipped the balance in her favor.

Of course, part of that time was merely spent making certain the planet was even there, then working out a way to get it through the dialing program so it was one of the next randomly picked sites. After all, none of them had believed her about the quantum mirror in the first place, it wasn't like they would this time. So she couldn't just say, "I could get home from there."

So here she was, having convinced Daniel that he and Makepeace and Teal'c might need her on this mission.

Daniel had been the easiest to manipulate. It scared her, though. Because her own Daniel was so similar. And yet not. She could have been content here, she knows. Except that none of them felt right. They weren't hers.

And of course, he wasn't there.

The planet looked nearly the same. Layers of dust, a disturbing symbol. Teal'c informed them what it was and they continued on, searching.

She could remember the entire complex layout from the last time. They'd spent two days looking for Daniel, and it was eerie. She kept expecting to see the shadows change and mold and become something else. What, she didn't know.

The large room containing the artefacts was finally located.

Daniel immediately began looking here and there, soft exclamations of surprise echoing off the ceiling. The hair on the back of her neck slowly twitched as she walked by the benches.

Naquadah powered at least two of the doohickeys.

Then she saw it.

She should have known, she reflects as a leaden numbness fills her. She should have known it could never be this easy.

Back in her own universe, there had been a lot of discussion about destroying the quantum mirror. McKay had even weighed in, agreeing with her. They hadn't destroyed it, fearful that it could cause a massive disruption. Like blowing up a stargate or opening a wormhole to a black hole.

Choking back her horror, she stopped in front of it, almost unable to comprehend what her eyes were telling her.

The quantum mirror had been shattered. Large shards of it were scattered on the floor. What must have been a staff blast had burned a misshapen chunk out of the left side.

It had been on when it splintered, she realized.

A hundred different worlds stared up at her from the shards.

She is absurdly grateful that this Daniel knows her so little. Her own would be poking and prodding at her even now, knowing from the way she was staring at the destruction of her hopes that there was something inherently wrong.

Makepeace calls her name, then.

"Sir?"

"Anything you see here you wanna take back with us, Major?"

The other reason she really wants to go back, she thinks as she looks down at the fractures of life at her feet. She misses being a Lieutenant Colonel already. It must be vanity.

"Well, this looks somewhat interesting. And there are probably other things." She looks over at him. "We should ask General Hammond to send a full science team back."

In this reality, she's discovered, Makepeace flushed out the NID's operation. Thor likes him.

Which is really kind of disturbing.

Harry Maybourne, she thinks as she looks back down at the shards, would find it utterly ironic that it was he who helped Makepeace take them down.

Or maybe he wouldn't.

"Fine. We'll give him that recommendation. For now, Major, take a few samples and we're done here." He shifts.

"Nervous, Makepeace?" Damn. She really had been hanging around Jack O'Neill too long. "Sir." She added belatedly.

He's eyeing her oddly, "No, Major, I'm simply stating a fact. We will not be hanging around here for long. There are better things for us to be doing."

"Right, sir." Sir. Sir. Sir. Shit. She needs to remember to call him that. It's not like with the other Colonel, when it was automatic, because she couldn't NOT call him that. Besides, she thinks rebelliously as she carefully nudges three of the shards into a collection bag, she out-ranks a traitor.

"Uh-huh." He nods once, then turns to Daniel. "Dr. Jackson?"

"I can't say, Colonel. Probably at least an hour."

"You have 15 minutes."

"But, Colonel, I--"

"15 minutes, Doctor." The tone he is using brooked no argument.

For a moment, she wonders if this scene would have played out on her side of the universe like this. And guesses it probably would have except that Daniel would have pouted and Jack would have been sarcastic. And Teal'c would have raised an eyebrow in amusement.

This Teal'c merely watches them all, as if he's recording everything for posterity.

But she distracts herself with moving to the benches and trying to decide what to take. There are two hand devices, and a healing device. They fit neatly in her pack. There's a Tollan emotion recording device and she's picked it up before she can stop herself. Emotion washes over her. Pain and terror and nothing like the calm serenity and adoration from Narim's device so long ago.

"Sam?"

Daniel's voice calls her back, and she looks over at him. The concern in his eyes might almost not be fake, she thinks. "I'm just trying to decide what else to take. It's all so... shiny."

Shiny. Jack would have mocked her for that. Daniel doesn't, he simply half-smiles, shrugs, and goes back to translating various artefacts for value.

Value.

It occurs to her that she needs the control for the mirror if she's going to do anything with it.

Finally, she spots the control device some distance from the mirror. Their time is nearly up so she moves quickly and picks it up. There's still room in the pack.

"Time to go."

Makepeace's voice grates on her, and she briefly considers simply letting them go back without her and jamming something in the gate so they can't come back through. But she'll need the instruments in her lab to figure out if the mirror works.

The whole world they're gating back to disconcerts her.

--


	2. Life Discovery

Disclaimers and notes on Chapter One

Chapter Two: Life Discovery

"Welcome back, SG-1." General Hammond is standing at the bottom of the ramp as jovial as ever.

She wonders if any of those here have ever had to see his dark side. And wonders, too, if she really ever did. "Sir." She may not respect Makepeace, but Hammond in any reality is a good man.

"Get checked out, then debrief in an hour, people."

The locker room is hers, first. And she's almost happy about that. A hot shower with the water pounding on her aching shoulders and back is almost enough to bring things into perspective.

A set-back. That's all the fractured mirror was. She was Samantha fucking Carter, and she would NOT fail herself. She would get home and then she would fall apart. Probably on Daniel and Teal'c both until they got tired of it and handed her over to Jack.

That wasn't that unpleasant a prospect, of course. And she could bypass the first two.

Maybe she should try to see Pete again. She is either horny or insane.

Or both.

While she is pulling on her shirt, the alarms sound. Someone was coming in. Habit takes over and she tucks her bootlaces in without tying them and takes off, damp hair trailing down her neck.

Once in the control room, she stands behind Sergeant Harriman, listening and wondering if she is supposed to be there. He shoots her a curious look, but says nothing.

"It's the Tok'ra IDC, General."

"Let them through."

Hammond notices her, gives her a nod. "Major."

"Sir."

He leads the way as they walk back down to the gateroom.

"George!" Her father's voice sounds the same, genial and relaxed. He spots her at the same time as she spots him. "Sam!"

"Dad." She looks past him, uncertain how to feel about this. It's her father, after all. And he might know, he might guess. Except no one else has, so it could be okay.

And then her brain connects with her visual cortex and memory.

Dimly, she wonders if this is what it feels like to get punched in the stomach while simultaneously falling off a cliff.

"Samantha." His deep voice is delighted, his eyes soft with something that makes her want to run.

The few remnants of Jolinar still lurking in her psyche are incredibly glad to see him. Her lips stretch into a smile, and she hopes she looks and sounds somewhat normal. "Martouf."

She should have read everything she could get her hands on. But she'd simply assumed he was dead.

Dead and buried and Lantash and Elliott and it is almost too much.

But there was the Colonel in her head, shaking her. And she wonders if this is a hallucination, then decides it can't be.

Sound snaps back into place and she knows they've been talking, and doesn't care what she's missed.

"I--have things to look into. I'll see you later, Dad. Sir. Martouf."

She hears them as she makes it to the corridor.

"Is Sam ok, George?"

"She just got back from a mission."

One explanation. If only they knew, she thinks as she rapidly walks away. The mission is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe she should have her head examined.

Yeah. That would be a great plan.

Her lab is a refuge, it always has been. Now it's somewhere familiar she can hide when things are too much. Her bench, the cot she slept on so many times while getting the Colonel back from Edora (it was Daniel, this time. That was one of the mission logs she checked in the beginning when she couldn't believe there was no Colonel O'Neill here).

For a moment she stands in the middle of the room, suddenly wondering if one more surprise has made it all so alien she won't be able to cope.

"Sam?"

"Hey, Daniel." She doesn't turn to look at him, simply continues trying to reconcile one life with the other.

"We've got a briefing in five."

"Oh. Right." Now she turns. "Had a chance to look over what you brought back?" She wonders if the quantum mirror was shattered by the jaffa, or if it was a random act on the part of the aliens who owned the lab.

"No, been busy in the infirmary and shower." A grimace. "Brightman says your post-mission physical is scheduled for after the briefing."

Ugh. "Right. I'd almost forgotten."

They leave her lab, because it's expected. They have a briefing, after all. She falls into what feels like normal chatter for the both of them until he asks about the off-world activation. "Dad and... Martouf."

"Ah."

The word conveys a lot of emotion, and she shoots him a sideways glance. She wants suddenly, and quite desperately, to ask him everything. To demand that he tell her who she is and how she's supposed to live this life. But she can't because if she does that there's a padded cell in it for her.

She's not fond of padded cells.

"With Pete gone..." Daniel's voice trails off, almost suggestively.

"No." The answer might be too quick, but she doesn't care. That was a door she closed a hell of a long time ago and she's not opening it again.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." She leaves it at that, and hopes he doesn't press more. This Daniel seems to not know her as well, yet he wants more personal details.

Or maybe her own Daniel simply is too self-absorbed.

A shiver runs through her, and she ignores it.

"Glad you could make it." Makepeace sounds sarcastic.

He's not as good as Jack. "Sorry, sir. I needed to blow-dry my hair." Neither is she, but seven years under his tutelage is almost enough to give any girl a head-start.

"Major, are you trying for insubordination today?"

She stiffens. Insubordination would do bad things for her chances to study the mirror. "No, sir."

"Oh, come on, Makepeace." Daniel's voice is bland. "Sam is more of a model soldier than even you."

She considers this, wonders if the Sam in this reality would have defied orders to take out Apophis' ships. Probably not.

"Gentlemen, Major." Hammond's voice draws them back to the tasks at hand.

A chorus of "Sir's" and "General" makes its way around the room. Teal'c merely inclines his head. Her father is standing behind him, Martouf with him. Everyone sits, Sam falling naturally into her seat next to Makepeace. Daniel on her right and her father and Martouf across from them. Teal'c is already half-asleep in his chair further down the table.

"Colonel Makepeace has already told me that you would like to make a more extensive survey of the artefacts Dr. Jackson." Hammond pauses and looks at her, "And your request for a science team, Major." He seems disturbed about this, but isn't elaborating. "At this time, it is not feasible to do either."

She'd almost expected that. This SGC only has 16 teams, and none of them are solely one thing or the other. She hadn't really wanted to find out what all the reasons for this are.

Daniel is going to object, she thinks.

"General--"

Yep.

"Son, I understand that there could be useful artefacts there. But until we have more lee-way given by the president, we are simply to explore and make contact with other races." Not letting anyone else say anything, he continues. "In the meantime, the Tok'ra are here with a proposal."

"We have recently uncovered something we've considered legend," Martouf says. "The armbands of Antoniak."

Damn. She really should have checked all the mission reports. "Let me guess," her tone is dry, "You want to use us as guinea pigs."

"In essence, Samantha, yes." A smile touches his eyes, "Because of our symbiotes we can not."

"I don't think they'll work on me, either."

"Anise wasn't certain they would. But we will try."

Good. No way for them to understand or find out why it won't work. An immunity to the virus the armbands contain would be really suspicious. Although it would corroborate her story.

"There's another reason we want to make this test. Sokar and Osiris seem to have discovered some new technology. They're building a newer, more advanced ship. We think there's a way to blow it up." Jacob nods at Sam, "We figure you could work it out, Sam."

"Thanks for the confidence." Just a little C4 would be all they'd need. And some luck. It was interesting that her father was the one here. Perhaps Anise had lucked out. Of course, this also meant that the Council couldn't pull a massive double-cross and sucker-punch them into destroying the ship for them. Sokar, though. That would take getting used to.

And Osiris. She wonders if Sarah Gardner is still trapped.

--

Two days later, Makepeace and the boys have destroyed Sokar's new ship. She's not really thinking about that, though. Instead, she's thinking about the files she found. The ones buried so deep she almost never saw them, the ones that immediately began disintegrating. It took fast typing to keep them from being completely destroyed. And even then she isn't sure she wants to think about their meaning.

Research into the quantum mirror has been put aside while she thinks about it.

Collaboration.

It's an ugly word and one she never thought she'd associate with herself.

But there's a party to go to, one to which she's been specifically requested. Something about the brass and funding. She slips into the dark blue dress one of the nurses offered her when she realized she wouldn't have time to go home, wonders briefly if she would have had anything suitable there, and then dismisses all thought and concentrates on one thing.

Be Major Sam Carter.

She feels rusty at it, like it's not who she is anymore (which it isn't). And part of that is the files she found.

But she's not going to think about that.

It's later that night that Catherine Langford corners her in a side room. She'd disappeared into it to catch some air.

"Who are you?"

The words are crisp and calm, the voice speaking them full of latent authority.

But she's been around Jack O'Neill too long. "Who do I look like I am?"

"You're not the Samantha Carter I know. Who. Are. You?"

The words are bitten off, and Sam suddenly realizes that Catherine knows. She doesn't understand how this woman she hasn't seen for years knows, but she feels strangely grateful. "Would you believe me?"

"Yes."

"Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter."

"Really?" There's something mocking about the tilt to Catherine's head.

"I'm from an alternate dimension." Even saying the words gives her pause. Because no one has ever believed her, and if Catherine doesn't, this could mean another two months going endless rounds with the psychs.

"Do you know how I knew you weren't Sam Carter?"

"I came through what's known as a quantum mirror." She pauses, suddenly uncertain. "At least, I think I did. I wasn't exactly awake when it happened."

"The Sam Carter I know is not a very confident woman, or rather, she's not confident in her looks and her self. She's uptight about science, she believes she knows better and never allows any opinion to differ."

"She must have really hated it here."

"And, of course, the most telling thing about the Sam Carter I know is that she would never wear a dress."

"Huh?" Sam blinks. "That's... odd."

"Damn right." Her arms crossed, Catherine eyes her. "A quantum mirror, hrm?"

"Yeah. It... We think it was created by the Ancients, like the stargate network was." Sam pauses. "She doesn't wear dresses?"

"Nope. She thinks it makes her too feminine."

"Is that why she broke it off with Pete?"

"Pete?"

"Boyfriend. We're... well, we were engaged."

"Ah."

"I shouldn't be telling you all of this, should I." She feels bitter. It was so easy to talk to Catherine, to let her guard down.

"Maybe." Her arms still crossed, Catherine looks away. "You want to get back, don't you."

"Desperately."

"How?"

"I'll have to find a quantum mirror." She isn't completely stupid. This might be Catherine, she might now know of her origins, but Sam doesn't feel like she can trust anyone anymore.

Catherine suddenly gives a rueful smile. "They're going to come looking for me soon. I'll call you tomorrow. We can talk more."

"All right."

When Catherine is gone, she finally lets herself sit. Perches on the edge of the table and bends forward. Her hands are shaking. It would be amusing or ironic if the others started believing her now. Especially with the files.

She wasn't going to think about those, but they're unavoidable now.

Major Sam Carter is a goa'uld collaborator. And she's loose in Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter's universe.

The consequences, the destruction that can occur, don't even bear thinking about. But she can't help it. So she slips back into the party, drinks a little too much champagne, and crashes in her lab. The cot is just as uncomfortable as it was during Edora. She's too drunk and tired to care.

--

Bleak landscape, black rocks and grey walls, and white powdered rubble. Daniel is dead at her feet, blood staining the ground vibrant scarlet. Teal'c is a little way off. For a moment, it's almost funny the way his body is all twisted. And then reality sets in, and she understands that his head is twisted unnaturally.

"Oh, god..."

She can't move. She can only stand there, boots slowly becoming washed in a sea of blood as more and more people collapse around her.

These men and women have fought alongside her before in the endless war against the snakeheads. Something inside is clawing at her throat, begging her to scream. But she can only stare at them. Harriman, Paul Davis, Siler... Even General Hammond staggers into her field of vision, before a staff blast twists him around. He lands half on Teal'c.

"Carter!"

The voice is hoarse, as if he's been breathing in smoke and dust. Which he probably has. She tries to turn towards him, half-succeeds until he's in her line of sight.

General Jack O'Neill looks absolutely ragged. At some point he was staff blasted, the charred edges on the right side of his uniform revealing intermittent flashes of whole pale skin. He must have been healed with the healing device, she decides.

"Carter!"

"I'm here."

But she isn't. Oh, dear god, she isn't.

It's a dream, she tries to tell herself. All a dream. You are not watching a different version of yourself pick her way daintily across a battlefield strewn with your friends. But she is. And she knows that the knife Major Carter carries will find itself buried in Jack O'Neill.

"No." Her voice cracks.

They can't hear her.

"No. Damnit, NO! Jack!" She shoves, pushes, tries to get to them.

The other her pauses as she reaches him. She's smiling so normally and trustingly up at the General.

"Jack!"

"Hey, Carter." His hand catches her cheek, brushes through the wispy bits of hair by her ear.

"Hey."

"No." She's still pushing, still screaming.

The other Sam Carter turns, catches her eyes. There's laughter in the sapphire depths. You can't stop me.

"NO!"

Light flashes off the knife as it plunges into his chest.

Crimson blood spurts out as it's jerked free. He begins to fall as the knife goes in again. There is such a look of shock and surprise on his face.

There's blood everywhere, and she doesn't remember moving from where she was held in stasis. Jack's head is in her lap.

"No."

"Carter..."

The light fades from his eyes.

"NO!" Damnit, this was NOT how it was going to end.

With an almost physical wrench, she slams out of the dream, rolling off the cot and landing on the floor.

She's dripping with sweat, shaking and heedless of everything in her lab except the overwhelming need to make this right. To get back there and stop this. To--

There's blood in the air, the shimmery coppery tang coating the back of her throat.

Pain suddenly manifests in her belly, and she doubles over, clutching at it. One hand comes away, and she realizes she's not sticky with sweat. She's sticky with blood. Her own. "Oh, god..."

"Did you not think I would realize?"

The voice is cold and velvet, and she recognizes it, and knows why he is here. "Teal'c."

He moves away from her, probably to clean the blade before using it again. "You are not Major Carter."

"You're--" She drags herself to her knees and tries to stand. Agony collapses her. "--you're the other one."

"My God shall supply all my needs."

There should have been irony. Fuck, but there should have been irony in the flat words. She raises her head to stare at him. "When we came back from Apophis' ship. Bra'tac was already dead, wasn't he?" It's the only thing that makes sense. Without Bra'tac, there would have been no cleansing ritual. Teal'c would have remained loyal to the goa'uld, reporting on the Tau'ri as he saw fit.

His lips curl slightly, sneering. "You are not a fit consort for my lord."

"I wasn't planning on being one." This time she actually succeeds in standing. From the amount of blood soaking the now tattered front of her dress, she wonders if he meant to use 'mauled by tiger' to explain her death. She is bleeding to death, by inches. At least he didn't hit her heart.

The macabre humor gives her some sort of balance, and she moves towards her lab bench. She is suddenly thankful she has always been a packrat.

"I believe--"

"Hey, Major--" Makepeace's voice falters as he stares at her.

"Colonel Makepeace. I have discovered that Major Carter is a goa'uld spy."

"He's lying," Sam says. Her vision is beginning to float, and she wonders if she's allowed to be hysterical about her blood loss. "It wasn't me. It was the other me. And him."

Teal'c moves before she's noticed, and the backhand sends her into the bench. Hitting the floor, she fuzzily wonders if that was two or three ribs she felt crack. Several things fall with her, scattering on the floor. "You will be silent, traitor."

"Now, Teal'c," but Makepeace sounds merely as if he's trying to keep the jaffa from killing her.

He isn't going to believe her.

She's going to die in the next few moments if she doesn't do something.

There's something to be said about being a packrat, she decides as one hand closes on the control device for the mirror. There's also no telling what she's about to do to herself.

"Teal'c is lying," she says, her voice clear and calm. "But I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do about it."

She rolls before the kick he aims can reach her. Rolls until she lands nearly on top of the shard that fell to the floor with her. One glance gives her a storage room in the SGC. Before either of the men have a clue what she's doing, she slams one blood-stained hand onto the glass.

For a moment, nothing happens.

And then her universe is torn to shreds.

--


	3. Waking With the Roaches

Disclaimers and notes on Chapter One

Chapter Three: Waking With the Roaches

The scream echoes through Level 23 of the SGC. Airman First Class Wade Wilson flinches at the tone of agony it contains. Sergeant Lawrence Olivier (Larry gets teased all too often) stiffens. "The hell was that?"

"Dunno."

Larry looks at Wilson and narrows his eyes. "Why don't you go check it out?"

"Why don't you?" Wade snaps. He shifts, then, uncertain. "We could go together?"

"And leave our post unguarded?"

"Oh, yeah. Like someone's going to get this deep into the SGC." Wilson scoffs. He straightens, "I'm going. Stay here if you want."

The scream has made his blood run cold, it had sounded like a thousand tortured souls being torn to shreds. At least, that's what it probably sounded like. Of course the soundtrack for Scream had been better -- but this had been a real, live, human scream.

Carefully, he turns the corner. Ahead is storage room 19, randomly designated and often used by the younger officers (and scarily enough by the General himself) as a... retreat. So to speak.

No one was sure who had installed the mattress under one shelf. But bets were that it was Mrs. O'Neil, complaining about old bones and muscles. Or something like that.

Across the hall was storage room 20.

No one ever went in.

(It didn't have a broken security camera, after all)

Deciding that the scream had definitely not come from storage room 19 (if it had, he was SO not getting involved), Wilson stepped over and opened the other room's door.

There was a faint tang of ozone in the air, like the smell you get after the fourth sonic boom. And something else. Something he instinctively knew was blood. "Hello?"

Maybe that was stupid. Maybe he shouldn't call out--after all, if there were bad guys down here, then--something grabbed his shoulder. "AUGH!"

"Ease down, Wilson. It's just me."

"Larry, you son of a bitch, didn't anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on a guy?"

"Well, you were takin' so--oh, shit."

"Damn."

She should have been pretty. If the short golden hair was anything to go by, she would have been really classy. Right now, though, she was covered in blood and soot, the dress she'd been wearing barely covering her. It was tattered and obviously blood-stained.

"Medic!"

"Right." Larry hit the button, sending out the alarm, then grabbed for the nearest phone. "This is Sergeant Olivier. We have an unauthorized guest down here in storage room 20. And she needs medical assistance."

Wilson stopped listening as Larry detailed the information they knew. He crouched next to the woman, eyeing the way she was laying, then looking up at the solid used-to-be-mirrored surface in front of her. There were images through it, now. Tangles and multiples of the SGC and other people. And in one, a really menacing jaffa.

"Need to... turn it off..." The voice came from below him.

He looks down, meets pain-filled blue eyes. "What?"

"The mirror... turn it off."

"Oh. Right." He reaches down and pokes at the thing. By luck, he hits the off button. "Got it." He reports happily.

Sadly, there's no golden smile in response, as she's already passed out again.

Obscurely, he feels disappointed.

--

There are voices.

Not that this is a new thing, some part of her decides fuzzily. There have always been voices out there. And voices in here. Sam. Lieutenant Colonel Carter. Jolinar. Thera. And those are only the beginning, she decides as the stars collide and her world continues spinning out of control in her cocoon of pain and blood.

"Will she wake up, Doc?" This one is female, and strangely familiar.

Definitely not as familiar as the next one. "I'm not sure, ma'am. But she seems to be a fighter."

Janet. Oh, dear GOD. Janet's alive here. Wherever here is.

"She'd have to be to have survived what you described."

"Yes."

Janet. She wants to cry, suddenly. Wherever here is, she is safe. She hopes. And that is enough to propel her completely awake. To crack her eyes and stare up at blinding light. To croak, or try to. "Hey."

"She's awake."

"Don't sound so surprised, Janet. You said she was a fighter." Cool hands touch her, lift her head slightly. "Here, drink this."

Sam sips carefully from the proffered cup. The movement is almost enough to exhaust her. "Where... Where am I?"

The hand on her head stills, freezes. "I think a better question is who are you." There's military firmness in the clipped tones.

"I need to speak to General O'Neill, Dr. Daniel Jackson, or, or Teal'c." Please don't let this be like the last universe, please let this one be different, please let me be safe.

"Oh you do, do you?" The woman's voice is amused. "Honey, I don't get to see Jack all that often. Hell, I have to come here if I want to, half the time. What makes you think you're on his schedule?"

Finally, she has her eyes open. The woman standing next to her is tall and blonde, and she knows her. "Sara."

"You know me?"

"You're Sara O'Neill."

"She's got you there, Sara." Janet's voice is amused.

She doesn't want to turn and face her best friend come back from the dead. But she does it anyway, turns her head and takes in Dr. Janet Fraiser, petite and red-headed and so beautifully, wonderfully alive. "Oh, god. Janet." And it hurts.

"Hey." Sara's hand strokes through her hair. "It's all right."

No. It wasn't. But she has to suck it up. The tears go away for the moment (and she is not a cryer, she thinks fiercely. But this has been a stressful day). She feels, almost, safe. "My name is Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter."

She's looking at Janet still, waiting for the recognition.

It never comes.

But Sara O'Neill makes a strangled noise, and the hand in her hair twists, dragging her back to face the pale and suddenly shaking woman. "What did you just say?"

"Your dog tags say Major." Janet's voice says mildly.

"They belong to a different Sam Carter." She meets Sara's eyes. There's no question in her voice when she says, "I'm dead in this reality."

"You..." Sara's whole body doesn't want to be here. It's stiff and unyielding, and there's a strange pain in her eyes. "I didn't recognize you."

"It's all the blood," jokes Sam, her eyes worried. "Masks everything."

"You were so young..."

"Tell me."

"You'd just made Captain. Jack and I were so damn proud of you, and then..." The hand in her hair twitches, then Sara continues. "You'd come over as a surprise, Jack and I sent you inside to see Charlie--he adored you like an older sister. Which, given how often you were around wasn't a surprise."

She would not ask this woman about her family. Would not demand to know why she had, apparently, spent some time with them. A lot. Captain. She would have been working on the stargate, then.

"Jack had a gun in the house."

It suddenly becomes crystalline. Horribly clear and so obvious she wishes she could take back asking. "I must have surprised him."

"You did. We heard the gun go off. And then he screamed. I didn't know little boys could scream like that."

Sam knows she's crying, can feel the tears sliding down her cheeks. Blames them on the pain in her gut and ribs and the horror this reality contains. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No." Sara's head bows, her free hand reaching up and swiping at her own eyes. "I need to warn Jack. Seeing you, what you could have become--it could hurt him."

"I know." Feeling compelled, Sam says softly, "In my universe, I wasn't there. I was in the mountain working on the stargate. I didn't meet Jack O'Neill until two years later. Two years after his son accidentally shot himself with his service weapon."

Sara's eyes widened. Her whisper is stark with horror. "Dear god."

"I think that's enough." Janet sounds angry, fierce and protective. "The two of you have torn enough emotional wounds in each other."

"I'm sorry."

"No." Sara's hand slowly moves out of her hair. "I think... I think I needed that."

Sudden exhaustion touches Sam. She is safe. There is no other version of her here, so she can stay longer than normal. There will be no entrophic cascade failure. "I'm so tired, Janet."

"Yes. There's something strange about your blood chemistry, Sam."

For a moment, the pain comes back. She hasn't heard Janet say her name for nearly two years. She wants to cry, but feels too tired. "I had a Tok'ra symbiote for a short while, when she died she left a protein marker and naquadah in my blood."

"Ah. That would explain why your body seems to reject the blood." There's a note of frustration in the doctor's voice.

"Transfuse..." Sam pauses, trying to remember what she was going to say. She giggles, "Expose the blood to a naquadah reactor pulse. That's what my Janet used to have to do."

"Get injured a lot, do you?"

"I'm on SG-1," now she's almost mumbling. "Comes with the job."

"Hrmph."

"Janet?" She suddenly wakes up, frantic, reaches out and grabs the wrist of the other woman.

"What, Sam?"

"It's good to see you alive."

--

"You're not going."

"Fine. You're not going, either."

"But I have to!"

Janet crosses her arms, uncompromising. "I'm not letting a critically wounded patient into another room by herself let alone another universe!"

"But--"

"Unless I go."

"NO!"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not going to watch you die again!" Okay. So maybe that was a) over the top, and b) not quite true. Daniel had watched Janet die. But she'd watched the Colonel get injured and then had to face her best friend being very, very dead. The pain was still hard to bear sometimes.

"All the more reason I should go. I won't get destroyed by entrophic cascade failure. Since," Janet held up one hand to block Sam's protest, "You think they'll be very suspicious."

"I have to go, Janet. You don't."

"Sam, you can't even walk under your own power right now. Why don't you leave the world-saving until later."

"Because they might be dead." And that is why she has to go. And go soon. Before the alternate of herself succeeds in bringing down the SGC from the inside-out. Before she returns to find her friends and colleagues dead and buried and turned to dust.

Before her nightmare becomes reality.

If it hasn't already.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Janet's tone softens. "You're barely well enough to stand. It'll be at least another week before I'll allow you to go back. And when you do, I'm going with you."

She recognizes this tone. Cassie got subjected to it. A lot. Her shoulders slump in defeat. "All right. But you can't stay, once it's all worked out."

"I know."

"Janet. Is Bra'tac still alive?"

"Last we checked, he was."

"Good." She shifts, trying to sit up more. Her stomach protests the movement, stitched muscles and skin being stretched when they really didn't want to be. "Ow."

"Stop that. You'll undo all my stitches."

Sam grimaces. "I look like a road map, don't I."

"Not quite. Sam... who did that to you?"

"Teal'c. In the reality I was in, Bra'tac was already dead. Teal'c was never cleansed, therefore he continued working for Apophis covertly."

"Oh, my."

"Yeah." Sam sighs. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Sure."

It takes only four days before she's moving on her own. Just walking around the level with the infirmary is enough to tire her out. Janet tells her she lost more blood than she should have. Even with the transfusions (and the inherent problems THOSE initially caused) she barely had enough blood volume to survive. But she did. And even though she's weak as a kitten, she is determined to be able to walk through the quantum mirror and back to her own reality.

Janet is almost impressed, and sort of not. It takes Sam another day before she decides to ask what's up.

"I ran a comparison of your blood. When we first took a sample, and then day before yesterday." Janet's hands are steady.

"And?"

"There's... I think there's an instability in it."

"Instability?"

"I think.... I think when you came through the broken mirror you damaged something in your cells."

"Like cancer." Sam guesses, feeling the energy she thought she had draining away.

"I can only make a guess, Sam." Suddenly, Janet looks helpless. "I can't even begin to guess how to treat it, let alone reverse it."

"So... even if I go home..." There is numb, and then there is numbed to the point of stability. Sam Carter can feel the latter deadening her veins and bones and she welcomes it, uses it as a shield, builds a huge fucking wall around her brain and pushes the incidental things to the side. She can't deal with the whole picture. "First A, then B."

"What?"

"I need to get strong enough to go home." Sam stands again, ignoring the way the room wants to sway. "And then I'm going back to my universe and I'm kicking that bitch's ass to the Pegasus galaxy."

--


	4. You Can Never Go Home Again

Disclaimers and notes on Chapter One. 

Chapter Four: You Can Never Go Home Again

"How did I become a traitor?"

Sara looks at her from the other side of the room where she's reading a magazine. "Chance?"

"Yeah. Chance." Reading would be interesting, but she's already bored with everything she knows. "Sara?"

"Hrm?"

"I want to meet Charlie."

The words fall flat in the silence. She knows why they do, but she's feeling perverse. She shifts onto her side and watches the emotions play across Sara O'Neill's face.

Finally, she says, "Why?" her voice a soft whisper.

"Closure? I don't... I need to do something, Sara. I hate waiting. I hate not having a god-damned thing to do."

"Like me when Jack was out on missions."

"Yeah. Probably."

"All right. I'll... talk to Jack about it."

Jack. General Jack O'Neill, who she hasn't seen once since she got to his base. She wonders, as Sara leaves, if he has been avoiding her. If there is some instinctual part of him that knows she doesn't want to see him. She also wonders if Sara understands how very damn lucky she is to have him.

The next day dawns something she can't see, confined to Janet's infirmary as she is. The doctor has been mothering her almost efficiently as she does Cassie. Sam allows it to a point. Revels in it, actually. She misses Janet being like this in her reality. Misses being able to tell her anything and everything. This doesn't quite fill the void, but it's close.

Of course, she hasn't seen Daniel or Teal'c, either. So maybe SG-1 just doesn't want to meet her.

"You have a visitor," Janet tells her at mid-day.

Since it's peaches and something suspiciously like ramen chicken noodle soup, Sam figures any visitor would be better than lunch. "Send them in."

He's not as old as she'd expected, she thinks after he stops halfway into the room. His brown eyes are big with something approaching fear. It's a fight or flight response she recognizes from his father. "Hi, Charlie."

"You're dead." The words seem to be all he's capable of for a moment.

"In this universe, yeah. But not in mine." She pauses, draws in a breath, "In my universe, the gun you were playing with killed you."

Silence, then.

He continues to stand and stare at her. She continues to lie there and stare at him, cataloguing many many details. He reminds her of the General's younger cloned self. All that arrogance and self-assurance is gone, though. This is the body of a teenager with the mind of a teenager.

"I'm sorry, Sam." His face crumples and he steps back, sitting awkwardly on the step stool Janet's been using. "I'm so very sorry."

"It's all right." And she gets up. She's not supposed to, but she does it anyway. Two steps and she already wants to be laying down again. Charlie doesn't notice her until she's nearly touching him. Maybe it's the way she's panting softly (damn Janet for being right about how screwed up her body is). "Hey."

"You're older." It's obviously the first thing he can think of to say, and it jars him.

She barely has time to regain her breath before he's hugging her tightly, crying on her shoulder. She can feel tears of her own drifting down slowly. Damn, but she's been awfully emotional lately. Maybe it's hormonal. "It's all right, Charlie. You didn't mean it." Automatically her hands rub circles on his back.

"It's not all right. It won't ever be all right."

Janet comes in a few minutes later, and eyes them. "You two ok?"

"Yeah." She pulls back, looks at Charlie. "Aren't we?"

"I don't know." He touches her face, traces his fingers down her nose, and then steps away. "It's strange. Why are you here?"

"It was an accident. I'm trying to get to my own universe again. I... Stopped here."

"Ah."

It was awkward, she thinks. There was no reason to have done this except she felt she had to. She steps back further, finds a bed at her back and leans against it. "I'm sorry, Charlie. I shouldn't have... I shouldn't have requested this."

"You're undoing years of therapy, Sam." His voice is almost amused. But there is a deep bitterness resonating through the room.

"I was wrong."

Sam Carter, admitting she is wrong? The Rodney McKay in her head mocked. Gosh, gee, has hell frozen over, you insane woman?

"No," she whispers softly, "I have."

--

Nearly nine months after falling through a rip in the fabric of space, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter steps through the quantum mirror, hoping she's returned home. She spent nearly a day paging through the worlds until she settled on one that looked promising. Then, of course, Janet insisted she sleep. She was almost too excited to do so.

As they step through, pain ripples through her skin. It's nothing like the last time, but it still hurts. Looking at Janet, she knows it hasn't affected the doctor. "Like falling off a bike."

"Yeah." Janet frowns. "You sure we're in the right place?"

"Nope."

Over the next few hours, they discover that they definitely aren't in the right place. Luckily, this SGA isn't too horrible, and they (also) have their own Janet and Sam. So the two are allowed an hour of rest and then sent on to another universe.

And another. Some of them are more suspicious. Usually, though, the story is believed and they're passed on after getting checked for infestation, implantation, and a thousand and one infectious diseases.

During the time they spend in the fifth universe, Sam makes sure Janet is distracted before curling up in a ball and shaking for a while. Each successive trip through the mirror is more and more painful, the resultant adrenaline lasting longer. And her torso is beginning to ache again. She is almost afraid to look and see that the skin has stopped healing.

Another trip through the gate, and she knows the moment they step out of the storage room that something is wrong.

Two hours of searching the deserted base confirm it and they make their silent way back to the mirror.

Sam stops in front of the mirror, then sighs. "Janet, I have to stop."

"I know. You're tired."

"Yeah."

They sit down, backs against the wall. Janet rummages through her pack then produces a syringe and a bottle. "Janet--"

"You're in pain."

"A little."

"Uh-huh." Janet eyes her, "Y'know, General O'Neill likes to claim he isn't ever in pain."

A wry grin touches Sam's lips. "Fine. Dose me. But..." There is an urgency to her journey. A worry at the back of her mind, but she understands that a few hours of drug-induced sleep won't destroy her world.

She hopes.

The needle slides in and moments later a warmth slides through her veins. Sam turns on her side, and curls around her own pack. As the darkness closes over her, she hopes there aren't any dreams.

--

A gentle hand shaking her is her next memory. That, and the fight her waking mind has to claw its way out of nightmare images of death and destruction, blood running thick and sticky glass slivers piercing her skin. "Gah." She winces.

"Still sore?" Janet asks.

"A bit."

The doctor snorts and begins packing her stuff back up. "I figure we should leave before whatever left this place so empty comes back."

"And that didn't occur to you before you knocked me out?"

A chuckle echoes in the small room. "I'm surprised it didn't occur to you before I knocked you out."

Having to admit Janet is right, Sam nods, "Fine. I was too exhausted to continue. I'm better now. Can we go?"

"Sure."

--

They have both become used to being poked and prodded and separated. Sam never mentions to them that Janet doesn't know how much the skin the stitches are holding together is falling apart. Once, Dr. Warner gave her a look. He knew her, apparently.

Or thought he did.

Being in these different SGCs has its own strange emotional disturbance.

There are times when she is dead or Janet is, or neither of them is. Daniel and Teal'c and Jack and Hammond and Kawalsky all revolve in a never-ending stream of losses and gains.

She wonders, sometimes, what Janet is getting out of this--how they'll get her back to her own universe.

But, then, Janet's universe is waiting for her, with flags up announcing that this is the way home. It makes her wistful, because her own universe doesn't know she is missing. And so there will be no flags and no grand hellos.

They probably don't even miss her, but she isn't going to dwell on that. It's defeatist. And would be untrue.

If they knew she was missing, they would miss her.

Daniel once told her about the way Jack tore the country apart (metaphorically) when she'd been kidnapped by Conrad. She knew that was part of the reason he insisted they call each other at least once a day. It had been strange to transfer that tradition on to Jonas, and then have to take it back from him when Daniel descended.

She misses them.

Which is an understatement. She craves them, wishes they were right here in this painful existence with her--and she knows that's a little bit selfish, but she allows herself to be selfish now.

Oddly, she only misses Pete for the sex.

She worries that this is a bad reflection on her. And then doesn't care anymore. She wants to go home, if Pete is there, if he isn't... Jack needs to be there. Jack and Daniel and Teal'c and Jonas and all will be right with her world again.

--

It's old hat, now. Janet still hasn't noticed the way she winces. Sam's got a few theories about the pain that she's terrified are true. The slow degradation in her cells is a result of stepping through a fractured quantum mirror. Every successive trip is slowly wearing away at the structures inherent in her own DNA. The other thing she's kept from Janet is that the slashes on her abdomen are slowly returning. It makes sense that the weakest points of her anatomy would degrade first.

She isn't bleeding again yet. At least, not externally. And she is so not thinking about that.

They step through and she stifles her whimper again.

Alarms sound as they re-appear on the other side of the mirror.

It's obviously standard operating procedure for any SGC that has a quantum mirror in the basement. They leave the room in silence, heading for the upper levels.

They reach the elevator before the cavalry arrives.

"Put your hands in the air!"

They both comply.

Within minutes they're in a holding cell, awaiting the General's presence. The SFs hadn't known what to think of the calm and collected alive Janet Fraiser. Many of them had known her, most of them had been treated by her. It seemed to disconcert them to see the woman they'd all been terrified of alive again.

Sam feels like she's walking on pins and needles. The base is still here, the people she cares about seem to be alive. But she doesn't know enough. She doesn't know if the other her has subverted people or is running a spy ring or has simply decided not to. And she needs to know, badly. Because... Because if the other her is perfectly innocent and not a traitor, she will leave.

The thought makes her want to curl in a ball and cry, but she doesn't think there's a choice, in the end. There were at least two other alternate realities that could use her skills. Ones where Sam Carter was either never born or had died. Either way, anything has to be better than usurping a good life.

General Jack O'Neill enters the room, Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter a step behind him.

She meets her eyes. It's the strangest thing, she thinks as she stares at herself. One can learn so much from not knowing one's self. And, yet again... There was a flash in the other Sam's eyes. Just for an instant, there was recognition and worry and fear. I know, she thinks at her. I know what you've done. I know what you're probably doing now.

"Doc." His hands are in his pockets as he studies Janet from head to toe. Then his gaze moves to her. There's something odd in it. Something she can't define. "Colonel."

He steps back, motions. The SFs unlock the door and motion for them to step through.

For a moment, her eyes meet Sam Carter's again.

And it all comes crashing through her. Everything the other woman may have done to the people she loves. Everything her machinations did to them in the alternate dimension. It's too much. She's still in pain, and she's fucking dying, and her alternate self is going to let the world burn.

It takes less than a second to step past O'Neill. He really isn't expecting anything. They had no weapons and they've been so peaceful. Her punch lands solidly, and the imposter's head whips around before she falls to the floor, bleeding already from a split lip. Her own shoulder aches from the impact, abused muscles protesting. "Get up." Something close to hatred is in her voice. "Get up so I can hit you again, you bitch."

"Sam!" Janet's calling to her, trying to drag her back from the abyss of anger.

Hands grab her ungently, and she stifles a cry of pain as one of them gets her around the waist.

"Be careful, you idiots, I just put her back together!" The sharp tones of Dr. Fraiser's voice loosen the grip, but it's not enough. Something slick is beginning to soak into her shirt. The stitches have finally succeeded in being torn.

"Damnit." This was not what she had planned. She was supposed to convince them with words and facts and figures and proof.

The alternate--Samantha--rubs a hand over her mouth, hiding the smirk that reaches her eyes. They glitter with malice in triumph. I win, they say.

Sam wants to suddenly cry and hates this fact desperately. This is fucking pathetic. Dying has turned her into a cry-baby. "She's a traitor."

"Riiight." Jack's drawl whips her head around and she stares at him, sees the scorn in his eyes.

"Nine months ago, she--"

"She what?" Samantha's tone is mocking. "Did you think to come and claim that this is your reality?"

"It is."

"Think again."

"I want them locked up again until we decide what to do with them."

"Well, we could let nature take its course," Samantha suggested.

"Carter--" Jack eyed her, one eyebrow raised. "That entropic thingie? Isn't that kind of painful?"

"Entrophic cascade failure." A shrug, while she wipes her lip off elaborately. "Probably."

"It's all right, Jack." Sam's shoulders sag. Her abdomen is hurting again. Janet's not going to be happy when she finds out there are torn stitches. The SFs take the relaxation as a sign she won't resist and release her to stand on her own two feet.

"Jack?" His eyebrow pops up.

She meets his eyes, weariness pressing down on her spine. "You've been Jack in my head since I challenged you to an arm-wrestling match, sir. I figured, since I was living in a universe where you died on Abydos it was allowable to call you 'Jack'."

"Who leads SG-1?" He asks, sounding almost curious.

"Colonel Makepeace. He's not as good as you, sir. For instance, his Antoniak armband fell off first. Daniel and Simmons had to drag him back with them."

"And how do you know you're in the right universe?"

"Because she knows she doesn't belong here."

"Oh, fun logic there, Carter."

"Thanks, Jack. I try." She wants to sit down, she thinks. But she can't. Not now, not when to show weakness could... could what? Get her killed? Perhaps she's being overly dramatic. Or maybe she's just beginning to feel the effects of the quantum mirror again. A shiver wracks her, and she steps back. "Janet." There's a curious edge to the pictures her brain is processing. Like a photograph whose edges are burning.

"Sam, what--oh, hell, somebody catch her!"

But they're not really watching the sun rise and fall over Japan. And the floor is colder than Antarctica.

--

Oh, this is familiar. There are voices nearby, talking in phrases and words that her brain isn't quite processing yet.

"--an idiot!" Ok. That's Janet. Good Janet. Berate whoever is... being an idiot.

Wow. These were some drugs. A giggle escapes Sam, and her entire abdomen shoots a lick of fire upwards. Ow. Ok. No giggling. Right, Colonel, I forgot. But it's not my fault you made a bad side-arm joke.

"Sam?"

"Hrm?"

Janet has a golden crown on her head. "Sam, wake up. C'mon, Sam."

Her eyes open wider. The crown disappears into the blinding light overhead, and she winces. "Hurts."

"I know, honey, I know. Those idiots tore some of my stitches out."

"I want to go home." The sound of her voice is pathetic. She sounds all of three. There are even tears leaking down her face. She, Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, is crying. She doesn't cry.

Ever.

"Yeah." Janet's hand touches her cheek, "You're tired, Sam. So very tired."

"Yes."

"I know something you don't know, Sam."

There is something in the sing-songing voice that pricks at her. Something that settles coldly in her gut. Janet didn't ask how the skin could be that fragile again. She didn't even sound worried anymore. "Janet?"

"You're never going home." The voice shifts ever so delicately. An extra amount of bass and pride and authority.

"Oh, god." She tries to get up, grabs desperately at Janet. "You're goa'uld."

Hands restrain her easily. "She's panicking! Get me a sedative now!"

"NO!" She fights, pushes and pulls and ignores the searing pain in her stomach. "She's not Janet!"

Needles prick her, and the images of Janet and the nurses and the orderlies all spiral away into nothingness again.

--


	5. Insanity Is All In The Mind

Disclaimers and notes on Chapter One

Chapter Five: Insanity Is All in the Mind

She wakes up in a padded cell.

"Well, this is new." The sarcasm echoes around the walls. "What next, the white jacket, the anti-depressants, and major counseling sessions with Dr. 'I Put Daniel Jackson in a Mental Institution' MacKenzie?"

No one answers her.

Her middle is still bandaged; carefully, she touches it, feeling the ridges and the stitching beneath. There's still something fuzzy about her mind. Drugs, probably. Janet, this new Janet, wouldn't know quite how to keep her sedated. Dr. Brightman might, though.

Brain. She has a brain, she is supposed to be using it. Supposedly, she's the greatest asset to Earth there is. The thought makes her want to curl into a ball. Her stomach might protest, though. Or her back. She vaguely remembers hitting concrete before. Janet is a goa'uld. It occurs to her to wonder how she missed this. But then, not all goa'uld have naquadah in their blood.

Oh.

For every decision, there is a branching universe. For every possibility... "Robert Rothman is still alive there, I bet. Where there is."

Her voice distracts her. She hadn't meant to speak aloud. They had found goa'uld without naquadah in them on P3X-888 -- postulated as the goa'uld world of origin. Neither she nor Teal'c had been able to detect the symbiotes. She doesn't know how long Janet's had hers. A shiver wracks her as she considers whether she has one as well.

No. No, she would know.

Of course, even in Steveston, she'd known.

But it must have been waiting. Biding its time. She wonders if it plans to use the quantum mirror to over-throw reality.

"I hope they at least scanned her." This Jack -- if he hasn't been changed irrevocably -- would have been paranoid enough to order it after her outburst.

But then, he thinks she's lying about belonging here.

Maybe he's right.

--

Her hands are dry. She turns them over and looks at them, traces the patches of skin that itch ever so slightly. She wonders if Daniel had dry hands when he was locked in a padded cell.

Maybe she'll ask him.

The door swings inwards, impinging on her thoughts and she looks up. She doesn't want to be distracted, but then, she also doesn't want to be locked in here.

He stands on the balls of his feet, wary and uncertain. He could run, she thinks. Run as fast as he can.

No one would catch the gingerbread Jack. The ridiculousness of the thought makes her want to laugh and she wonders just how much of the sedative is still running through her veins.

"I didn't think it would be this easy, Carter."

"Nothing in life is easy, Jack." The words are cheap, but she's not going to apologize. Not when she is this close to being where she belongs.

"Your double had an entrophic cascade fit thingie." There's more, she decides. But he still doesn't trust her.

Ah. That's why it was easy. Her eyes close and she leans into the wall, "You need to run every security program you can. Anything she's ever touched has to be checked." A grimace, "Felger might be able to crack any codes. And have Teal'c--" He makes a sound. She isn't sure what it is, but he makes a sound, and her eyes fly open. "Teal'c's dead, isn't he."

"She--they.... It was a mission. Daniel didn't see what happened, but you--she. Damnit, Carter," a hand scrubs over his face. "That's when we first began suspecting you--her."

Suspecting. "Teal'c is one of the few people I can see her having trouble fooling."

"I'm a fool, then?" There's harshness in his words, a bitterness that flavors the air between them.

"She's me. She's obviously very very good at it." Teal'c is dead. The words pound into her skull, and she wants to cry. This is too much at once. Too many bad things and heartaches and double-crosses and too much pain. "I can't do this anymore, Jack." She doesn't even want to know what he means by suspecting.

"We checked your Doc Fraiser. She had a goa'uld. Daniel thinks it's from the planet where the Unas come from."

"Symbiotes without naquadah. Yeah." Stick to the facts, she thinks. "We must have crossed through a reality where they had taken everyone over -- you know the SGC and its tests. We were separated a lot of the time, I would never have noticed. I guess they weren't sure what to do with me, so they left me without one." She knows she's shaking again. Or maybe they tried and she still has symbiote-killing venom in her blood. It's a vaguely comforting thought.

"You're gonna be all right, Carter."

"No I'm not. I'm dying. Didn't you hear Janet?" Now it's her bitterness coloring the room. "Traveling through a shattered quantum mirror breaks down cellular membranes. My--"

"Ah!" His hand is out, stopping her.

The gesture is so familiar, something she hasn't seen in over nine months. It's the last straw, nearly. Grabbing onto her control with the most tenuous of grips, she stiffens. "Please go away, Jack."

"Shouldn't you be calling me sir?"

"I'm dying, Jack, I really don't give a fuck about protocol anymore." A tear slips out.

"My knees can't take this," he announces, his tone cranky.

"Huh?"

Before she can understand, he's kneeling in front of her, one hand stretching out to touch her cheek. "C'mere."

It takes longer than she wants for her to fully comprehend what he's saying. And she doesn't want to lean against his strength, but it's been so long, and she is so tired. She moves a moment before he's about to pull away, leans into his chest and finds his arms slipping around her. This is home. This is right. A sob escapes, and his hands knot behind her back. She soaks his shoulder with her tears.

"You're home," he finally says, his voice muffled because his mouth and chin and nose are buried in her hair.

She decides he has his eyes closed. "Don't let me go."

It's weak and it's pathetic, but damnit, she is sick of this.

"I kind of need to stand again."

"Sorry." She pulls back before he can, leans against the wall of the cell and closes her eyes.

"Carter?"

"Yes?"

A hand touches her cheek again. "I could leave you to sleep, but we might need your help. She is you, after all."

"She's better than me, I think." Her voice is thready with something like guilt. "What did you mean, about being suspicious?" She needs distraction, because she is not this weak, damnit. She is never this weak, and thinking and working and planning are going to make her stronger.

"Later. Right now we need to get you back to the infirmary."

"I'm fine."

"Like hell you are."

"Why am I here, anyway?"

He shifts, looking away, then back again. "We still weren't sure."

Of course. "I think I'd rather stay here." Now she's whining again. But she's so very tired.

She doesn't, of course. The doctors and nurses bustle in and take her away. She lays on a bed in the infirmary and tries not to think too much. She can hear them, though. The soft whispers, the furtive looks. The General left to go back to running his base, and so it's only her.

"Degenerating at a quicker rate... exponentially..." The words drift over her.

Sam Carter knows what they mean. But for the moment she hasn't the energy to care. Later, she can curse and rant and scream. But for now she's just trying not to fall asleep again. She's so fucking tired of being asleep.

In sleep, she dreams. And the dreams are nightmares that she has worried will become her reality. Right now, she's almost certain that her nightmares are worse than reality. But she doesn't want to test that. Doesn't want to find out that in her dreams she wakes up laughing.

Perhaps in dreams, she will live.

Sound reaches her a little while later. Some emergency, the infirmary staff bustle and holler at each other. They pack and then disappear, leaving one lone nurse to watch over their patient.

Barely five minutes pass before the young woman appears, tilting her head as she regards Sam.

"I'm fine." A lie, but it should send her away.

Of course, Janet hired most of the infirmary staff, made sure they could deal with everyone up to and including then-Colonel O'Neill. One lowly Lieutenant Colonel Carter wouldn't scare the dust off a tray. The nurse chuckles.

Sam is moving before she understands, rolling off the bed and falling falling falling to land in a heap on the floor.

"Hey!"

Crawling hurts, moving hurts, but she makes do, dragging herself up and away. Fight or flight and she isn't sure why until the nurse's eyes flash golden. "Shit." There's a red panic button on the wall to her right. At least three yards away. Which means she has to stand and then lunge and then pray she hits it before the goa'uld has a chance to take her down.

"Insolent Tau'ri." The nurse paces calmly around the bed. "You--"

A kick sends the IV stand into the nurse's side and she stumbles slightly, but continues forward. Sam doesn't wait, scrambling under the bed and out the other side, ignoring the way her muscles protest. Someone may yell at her for ripping her stitches again.

Two yards, and she's against the wall and pulling herself upright, ignoring the sound of the goa'ulded nurse's rantings and ravings.

Pathetically, all goa'uld fall to type.

One yard, and she knows there's very little chance she can close the gap with a lunge and so continues walking even as a hand grabs the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. A kick to the back of one of her knees causes her to collapse again to the floor and the goa'uld follows her, dragging her head back.

"Your death will not be swift." Breath hot on her neck, disgust and anger filling the words.

"It never is." She manages.

Her head is shoved forward, then released and hands grip her tightly by the shoulders. "In a moment, you will serve your god."

This has happened before, she thinks, in broken images. Jolinar in the mouth and then the symbiote in Steveston. And there's no venom coursing through her veins to kill this one. No way to escape it.

One chance, and she takes it.

The head butt smashes the emerging symbiote against the nurse's jaw. It lets out a shriek, but the sudden loss of control releases Sam's shoulders. She pushes up, ignoring her throbbing knee.

Her fist slams onto the panic button as something slimy wraps around her ankle.

"No." The symbiote snarls up at her, then rushes up her leg.

She barely catches it in time, fingers closing around its slippery form as it springs up towards her chest. It's a good thing, Sam decides as it wriggles to free itself, that the infirmary walls are concrete.

"Never." Thud. "Ever." Thud." "Again." Screech. "I will." Thud. "Never." Thud." "Be--"

"Sam!" Hands are catching at her arms, pulling her away from the wall, stopping her. "Sam, it's all right! It's dead! It's dead."

Tremors course through her, and she suddenly notices that she's kneeling again. "Jonas?" Her voice sounds oddly high-pitched.

"I missed hair gel."

The non sequitur shatters her tenuous control, and she collapses completely. "I can't do this anymore, Jonas." Her tone is matter of fact. He's rocking her, arms wrapped around her almost too tightly. "Life and death and being taken over and turned inside-out."

He's crying, she realizes, his lips pressed against her throat. "You're alive. And you're safe."

A laugh escapes her and it sounds ugly. "That's what they keep telling me."

"Really." He sniffles and pulls back, "And Dr. Brightman's gonna be pissed about the way you painted her wall."

"Good." The world is beginning to look indistinct again. "I think I'm going to sleep now. I may be some time."

"You'll have all the time in the world."

It's the last thing she hears before unconsciousness claims her again.

-- 


	6. Discovering the Cure to Doppleganger

Disclaimers and notes on Chapter One

Chapter Six: Discovering the Cure to Doppleganger

Jack hadn't liked keeping Carter locked up. But there needed to be proof. Proof that would carry more weight with the Pentagon than their gut instincts. Certainty. Of course, this was the SGC - as far from stability and certainty as you could get. Proof that would over-ride her certain accusation of sour grapes on his part. But he doesn't like to think of that.

Daniel would have objected, but Daniel didn't know. In some ways, the General was glad Daniel was still out with SG-10 studying rocks. He'd needed the break -- what with the constant suspicion and worry. Their Carter was not right. Sometimes, Jack wishes he had noticed in the beginning. Then...

He liked to think he was smart. Tried to act dumb (usually successful). But underneath he was, inherently, intelligent. And he knew this about himself. Still does.

But she had been damn good at fooling them. She'd led SG-1 well, didn't blow anything up that she shouldn't have--and she'd dumped Pete.

Not at first, of course.

On, no. She'd waited until she was certain of the General.

Certainty, again.

He likes to think he would have caught on with a little more from her -- but Teal'c's death had distracted him. The grief had hit them hard (and they'd thought she was upset, too). It left him twisting, vulnerable.

--

"First Janet, now Teal'c."

He can still hear the pain in her voice, the tears she was crying into her beer.

"Who's next? You? Me? Daniel?"

"Nah."

Her eyes had met his, her gaze suddenly focused and clear. "I don't want to lose this."

"So don't." The hoarseness in his voice was the beer, he'd convinced himself.

--

Months later and he still wonders if he could have known.

It was Daniel who came to him, who fidgeted with the paperweight on Jack's desk until the silence was finally too long. "I think... Sam's off."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." He set the ball of glass with the tiny people in it down on the desk. "I can't put a finger on it."

"Huh." Something that felt like dread touched him. "Ya know, T said something similar to me. I didn't take him seriously."

And the two men had looked at each other. Even now, Jack wonders if they were suspicious then, or merely paranoid.

"Jack..."

"Daniel, Teal'c is dead."

The archeologist's hand grabbed the snowglobe again. "It isn't your fault, Jack."

Carter had said -- if it was Carter, if it wasn't a Carter from a mirror universe or something more sinister -- that there wasn't anything of Teal'c to bring back. Nothing to bury, no body to mourn. Teal'c was just dead.

"So... we think something's wrong."

"Maybe."

"How do we tell?"

"Well..."

They had been saved by the sudden klaxon of an unauthorized off-world activation. It was Jonas, arriving for diplomatic talks with the Pentagon. Without needing to discuss it, Jack and Daniel kidnaped the diplomat for beer and pizza, citing team solidarity.

Carter seemed amused that they wanted to make a Guys' Night Out of it, but didn't object more than they would have expected.

"You what?" Jonas stared between the two of them. "You think Colonel Carter is a goa'uld?"

"Well, no." Trying not to look as uncomfortable as wild, unfounded paranoia should have made him, Jack shifted. "We just -- she seems -- off."

"Guys, Teal'c just died."

"Yeah, we know, Jonas. Just... when you see her, treat her normally and don't let on --"

"That I think she's a spy?" Damn. Jonas had learned sarcasm from the master. "I'll try not to, General O'Neill. Really."

Unfortunately for Jonas' sarcasm, he quickly proved himself wrong. The report he gave them after coming back from Washington and working with Sam in her lab for a short time was given to them at a strip club.

Lots of flashing tassels, dollar bills, and conspiracy theories.

"It's not our Sam."

"You're sure?"

"Positive. I don't know where she came from, but... She doesn't belong here."

"Ah."

--

And now they have their own Carter back. He stands in the doorway of the infirmary, and watches her. Jonas left her curled on the bed when he was called off to talk to Washington. She's facing the other way and he just stares at her, drinking in the sight of her, alive. Not whole, but alive.

"How did you know?"

The words catch him by surprise. She hasn't moved, and he wonders how she knows he's there, then doesn't care. "Carter--"

"Jack."

He can't get used to this, he thinks. She isn't supposed to call him that (despite him asking her to do so on numerous occasions, he'd eventually stopped asking), but he lets it pass. "Carter, we... We figured it out after Teal'c died."

"Ah."

He wants, suddenly, to hold her again.

"Jack, how's the system sweep going?"

"You were right about Felger. He may be an idiot, but he knows his code." When people weren't looking over his shoulder, anyway. It looks like the few bugs she put there have been taken care of. Messages have been sent to the Tok'ra, inquiring about possible defecters to any goa'uld forces from their side. And to find Jacob Carter. If the Tok'ra are even listening.

"Good." She still hasn't looked at him.

Without his own volition his hand touches her shoulder, "Carter -- Sam." And he stops, because he isn't sure what he wants to say.

She turns and looks at him, and he's scared by how tired she looks. Dark circles under her eyes like bruises, and a scratch on her cheek. "Is Janet still alive?"

"No." He bows his head, "The damn goa'uld killed her."

Her eyes close, "I suppose we wouldn't have gotten her back to her own universe anyway."

There's a dullness to her. "You've given up."

"I'm dying, Jack."

"You keep saying that. Stop it."

"Ignoring it won't make it go away. Traveling through a shattered quantum mirror did something to my DNA, Jack. And traveling to get here just made it worse. I don't need to hear the doctors tell me there's no cure." She looks away from him again, "Entrophic Cascade Failure might have been less painful."

"Stop that."

"Fine." She closes her eyes and turns away, hunching her shoulders. "Go away."

He surprises himself by going. But there are things to do, so he goes. The Pentagon needs more debriefing.

--

Two days have passed since she arrived in her own universe. She is getting worse, the deterioration in her cells not quite apparent, but she knows the doctors have no cure. Even Brightman doesn't do more than look resigned.

Major Davis has arrived from the Pentagon to debrief her. He's spending time talking with her other self, a woman who is deteriorating with every hour.

Sam feels no sympathy for her. She can't.

Feeling sympathy for the woman who stole her life is anathema.

Jack hasn't visited her, and she wonders whether that hurts more or less now that she's here in her own universe. And she still can't have him. Jonas has talked to her several times, in and around his own duties. Apparently, he's now assigned permanently to the SGC as the Kelownan liaison. The Pentagon, he has said, is considering reassigning her. Citing her unreliability, the months gone...

It doesn't matter. She's dying, even if they won't believe it.

"Carter."

His voice is welcome in her silence, and she looks at him. "Hey."

There's no smile on his face, no warmth in his eyes, he just looks tired. "She's dead."

I'm dead, you're dead, we're all dead. The echoing refrain filters through her brain. "Ah. I..." I'm not sorry. She can't lie about it. Not even now. "So..."

"You broke up with Shanahan." It's abrupt, but he's kind of fidgeting. "I mean -- she did. Back..."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"Oh?"

He's still restless, and she suddenly wonders why he can't meet her eyes. And then she knows. "You fucked her, didn't you." She still feels brittle. As if one false move and she'll come apart at the seams.

"No. Yes. Ah, crap."

She doesn't have to look at him to know he's scrubbing at his face as if trying to change something. "It makes sense. It's what made you wonder, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And why you didn't just lock her up." So much was painfully clear now. "You were afraid she'd level a sexual harassment charge against you, that it would twist everything up. You needed proof."

"Carter, I'm not going to apologize. I thought she was you."

"I know." She closes her eyes. She can't hate him, can only feel hurt (which is irrational). It's too hard to hate Jack O'Neill. He was the life-line and anchor to her search for her home. Hating him seems pointless. "Go away, Jack. Let me die in peace."

--

General Jacob Carter arrives the next day, his worry and concern for his daughter over-riding Tok'ra rules about dealing with the Tau'ri. Defunct treaty or not, they're still on the same side of the war. He corners Jack an hour after seeing her.

"How the hell did this happen?"

Jack runs his hands over his face. "We're still not sure. Were you able to try the healing device on her?"

"Yeah. Selmac says there's no go." Jacob sounds frustrated. "The amount of damage is too much to fix. But..."

"But?" Any hope in the storm.

"There is a way, Jack. But you're not gonna like it."

"Carter is dying. There's a hell of a lot I don't like about that."

Jacob sighs. "We could let her join with a symbiote. Since this seems to be similar to cancer, a --"

"No." Jack can't believe Jacob's even suggesting this. "You know your daughter, Jake. There's no way in hell she'd take a symbiote."

"Even if she's dying?" Jacob raises an eyebrow.

And Jack has to look away, because this is suddenly a situation turned the other way around. Last time, it was her pleading with him. He refuses to do this to her. "I can't ask Carter to do it, sir."

"I'm not saying you do, General," the Tok'ra's voice is dry. "This is a decision she needs to make on her own."

"General!" Jonas Quinn bursts into the room, bouncing.

Jack doesn't want to think about the energy required to fuel a happy, let alone exuberant, Jonas. "What?"

"I know you're busy, General, but I think I have an idea."

"For?" Impatience was always his besetting sin.

"Saving Sam," Jonas waves his notebook (a ubiquitous thing, Jack doesn't think he's ever seen the Kelownan without it), "Remember Nirrti's machine?"

"Vividly." And Carter, dying because of it.

"It manipulates DNA. Now, this degradation appears to be similar to the destablization that was exhibited by those Nirrti was experimenting on."

"And?"

Jonas sucked in a breath, "And I think it's close enough that the machine could fix her."

"That's great. One problem." Damn, he hates this. "Eggar said he'd destroy the machine."

"Well..." Jonas shrugs, "Maybe he hasn't. Look, General, what do we have to lose -- just let me contact Eggar and Wodan, and see if it's possible."

"All right." It was hope, of a sort. "But no one says a word to Carter until we know."

"Right." And Jonas bounces off to the control room.

Jacob sighs. "Does he run on Energizers?"

"Yeah." Jack made a face. "I should go visit Carter. Call the President. Something like that."

"What you should do is get some sleep, Jack."

"Yeah." Like that would happen.

--

Sam is numb again, emotionally drained and completely over crying. She likes being numb. It means she doesn't display this distressing tendency to cry on people. A part of her finds it ironic that she has survived nearly a year in a mirror universe, and it's the coming back that's killing her.

It's been at least three days since she reappeared in her own universe. Her condition is deteriorating -- she doesn't need the doctors to tell her that. She can feel her body slowly unraveling, piece by piece.

There was a time she would have laughed at something like this.

Sam Carter has very little laughter left.

Major Davis spoke with her for hours on her second day. Explaining that, for the time being, the Air Force wasn't certain whether her status with them would remain the same or whether she'd be discharged, ferried home. Left to rot until she died -- not that he said that. But he was thinking it. There'd been pity in his eyes as he looked at her. And she hated that. She didn't want anyone's pity.

Ironically, she'd been dead since the day she woke up in the mirror universe. This was just the inevitable catching up.

"Sam?" The voice is tentative, but she recognizes it before Daniel Jackson steps into her field of view. A tentative smile is on his lips. "Hey."

"Daniel."

One of his hands settles on her forehead, brushing upwards to touch her hair as if he's convincing himself she's really there. "So..."

"Heard you were out with one of the teams."

"Yeah. Jack... Thought I'd be useful there."

He's tan, she notices. And looks healthy and fit. "Had fun?"

"Yeah, there's this variation in the hindu language we came across on the ruins, and I think it proves that --" he stops himself, smiling deprecatingly. "But you'll get bored if I keep rambling."

"No. It's... It's ok. It distracts me." From dying.

"Look, Sam. Jonas thinks there's a way to cure you. But, well... Jack thinks you might not want to go through with it."

"I won't take a symbiote, Daniel. Ever." Not now, even while her life depends on it, would she risk that hell on earth again. Not while she has a breath left in her to protest the invasion and destruction of self that would occur.

"No. We know." His hand touches her hair again, then drifts down to pick up one of hers. "I know I wasn't, er, here for it. But do you remember the machine Nirrti had?"

"Yeah." Hard to forget the feeling that your body was ripping itself apart.

"Jonas contacted the guy there -- uh, Wodan, I think. And he said they didn't destroy the machine. And, well, they think it might cure you."

A shiver passes through her. She can remember seeing her DNA spread out like a road map to be shifted and changed. All for the pleasure of a parasite masquerading as a Goddess. "What's the catch?"

"The catch, Colonel," Dr. Brightman's voice is firm as she appears, "is that I don't think you'll survive the trip through the stargate. I'm afraid I can't authorize this."

"Fuck. You."

Daniel looks surprised at the language. "Sam --"

"Doc. Daniel. This might save my life, correct?" She laughs, and then has to fight down a wave of nausea. "Gah. I'm dying. If I survive the trip, fine. If I don't, fine. At least I'll die fighting it. Instead of sitting here, wasting my life away 20 floors underground!"

Brightman looks at her for a moment, then nods, lips tight. "Very well."

With effort, Sam sits up. "Let's get this show on the road."

Daniel slides an arm around her waist and she stands, swaying slightly. "Jesus, Sam."

"Hard to keep on weight when your body is self-destructing, Daniel."

"Uh-huh."

They journey to the gateroom in silence, she leans on the wall and tries not to think of anything resembling hope.

Hope means life. Which means she'll have sessions with MacKenzie, or some other pet psychologist. Life means a possibility of never getting her job back. Or only in a diminished capacity. No gate travel, only lab work. And while that worked in the other universe, this was her home, and it was her life. Is her life.

"General," Daniel calls as they stop in front of the ramp. "We're ready to go."

The gate flushes to life, the chevrons locking swiftly. Perhaps it's a new program her other self designed. She doesn't know, and doesn't care right now. Daniel's arm is the only thing that keeps her upright as they go up the ramp.

Stepping into the cold of the wormhole blankets out her senses. And then she is falling.

- 


	7. Fixing the Solution

Disclaimers and notes on Chapter One

Chapter Seven: Fixing the Solution

Holding tight to the suddenly unconscious body, Daniel scans the horizon, finally spotting Jonas walking towards them.

With care, he lifts Sam into his arms, disturbed again by how fragile she feels, and begins walking towards the Kelownan.

Jonas meets him and helps Daniel carry Sam to the palace where the machine is still installed. Wodan and Eggar are not the twisted freaks they were before. Now, they seem almost human. Wodan is waiting as they approach the door. "She is still alive?"

"Yes."

"Good." His face is troubled as he looks at the unconscious bundle that is Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter. "It would be a waste for one such as she to never be fully whole again."

The two men don't answer him, and all three quickly make their way to the chamber.

Eggar is waiting for them in the room. He looks at them and sighs. "You will have to hold her up in the machine. Hopefully, this will not cause a problem."

Neither of them ask. They want Sam back. Any complications might dampen their hope. Jonas and Daniel each take a side, propping her up. And then the machine takes hold, DNA spins out in holographic form, dancing to the whims of the man at the controls. A shudder passes through Sam.

"Whoa." Daniel tightens his grip and frowns. "She's really not doing well."

"Her patterns are badly fractured, but I believe I can re-align them properly." Eggar says, his voice distant.

Time passes, and Daniel can feel the machine working, its field occasionally brushing across his fingers, or Jonas's. The Kelownan watches the man at the controls avidly. Finally, it seems to be over. The light-show shuts down.

"There. I have re-integrated everything." Then the man frowns, "Except..."

"What?"

"The machine's field incorporated two separate strands of DNA from the two of you. You were too close."

"So, it mixed with Sam's?" Jonas sounds worried.

"Not precisely." He tips his head, "I think she's now pregnant with a combination of your DNA."

Daniel is pretty sure he isn't the only one gaping. Jonas finds his voice first, though, "Mine and Dr. Jackson's?"

"Yes."

"Sam is... pregnant."

"Possibly," Eggar looks rueful. "I know so little about the workings of this machine. Even three years of study have not shown me everything." A sigh from him, "It is probably some sort of fail safe mechanism."

A groan comes from Sam, and they all look at her as she opens her eyes, body still held up. "Guys?"

"Hey, Sam." Jonas smiles. "How ya feelin'?"

"Like I got run over by Prometheus." She smiles back weakly. "So it worked?"

"We think so," Daniel says, his voice cautious. He coughs. "Uh, Sam, there could be a problem."

"Oh?"

"There's... a possibility you're pregnant with a combination of Jonas' and my DNA."

Sam blinks at him, then looks at Jonas. And then she laughs. The sounds isn't happy, but there's not as much of a bitter edge as Daniel is expecting. He takes it as a good sign.

"C'mon, Dr. Jackson. Let's get the Colonel back to the SGC."

"Sounds like a plan."

--

The tests have all come back good. The machine fixed her. Sam Carter sits in the infirmary, and stares at Major Davis. He looks uncomfortable.

"Just tell me, Davis. I'm not going to bite."

"I'm afraid, Colonel, that the Pentagon and Air Force have decided that you are to be taken off active duty until such time as your physical, mental and emotional health has been ascertained. There will be a decision made then as to the final dispensation you receive." He sighs.

She swallows, "They're kicking me out, aren't they?"

"I... I'm sorry. It looks that way."

"No, I... I should have expected it." She forces a smile, "So, who do I need to see first?"

-

Her father has to leave, to return to the Tok'ra, and convince them to re-join the Tau'ri in the fight. She wishes him luck, then settles down to await the inevitable testing.

Three weeks of being poked and prodded mentally and physically, and she's almost ready to scream at them all to go away. And then, finally, they're done. Reports filed, statements sent, and it's up to Major Davis to tell her the news.

Sam tries to convince herself it's good, but as soon as he steps into the room they gave her down the hall from the infirmary, she knows it isn't.

"I'm sorry." The file in his hand isn't all that thick as he hands it to her.

There's a letter on top of it, but her eyes aren't steady enough to read the ornate script. "Just lay it out, Davis. I can't... read this. I can't take it all in visually."

"You're being medically discharged from the Air Force."

She's expected that. There would be know way to keep her in, not knowing what could have been done to her. Whether the cell deterioration might have had lasting effects or not. It still hurts. She was so eager to get home, where she could continue with her life and go from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel and General. "What else?" Because there has to be an else, or he wouldn't look so uncomfortable.

"There is currently an argument as to what to do with you, Colonel." He winces, "The NID are claiming that you need to be completely de-briefed by one of their top brainwashing experts."

"Oh, god." She feels sick. The NID will want to pull her apart into pieces, her life spread on a canvas for all to see. And there is still corruption in the agency, or the Trust would never have been able to operate as it had. "Please tell me that's being fought."

"Generals Hammond and O'Neill are both strident in their objections," Paul pauses, and his voice turns dry, "General O'Neill has been quite vocal and descriptive about what he believes should be done to the NID if they're allowed to get their hands on you. Agent Barrett is also one of the objectors."

"What else?"

"The Pentagon wishes for you to stay working on the Stargate Program, possibly heading up the laboratory and science departments. There is also consideration as to whether they would rather hire you for the Groom Lake facility." He coughs, "All of this is contingent on you agreeing to still work for them, of course."

But no going through the stargate again. She can feel the stipulation in the air, and wants to cry. But Samantha Carter is past tears. "I suppose I don't have a choice, do I."

"Well, you do," his tone softens, "You have the credentials to join almost any research program out there, work as a consultant, you name it."

"But they wouldn't be alien technology."

"No."

A shuddering breath, and she is better. "I want the SGC, Davis."

He smiles, "I knew you would."

"But. Don't put me in charge. I hate paperwork almost as much as General O'Neill."

"Yes, ma'am." Major Davis steps back and salutes her, posture stiff. "It was an honor serving with you, Lieutenant Colonel Carter. I hope things turn out well."

"Thank you." She returns the salute and sits silently as he leaves, then looks down at the folder. There's a lot of reading ahead of her. For better or for worse, she should probably do it.

--

Another day, and this time, she almost doesn't want to know the outcome. She's nervous, sitting in the General's office, waiting for the call from the President. Daniel is sitting next to her, Jonas behind them while the General plays with a pen, fiddling.

"Sam?" Daniel breaks the silence.

"Hrm?"

"I'm really glad you're back."

"Me, too," Jonas pipes up.

She glances between the two of them. "Guys, it's okay. Just because I'm now pregnant with your child... I'm not angry, all right? Frustrated, yes. Angry, no."

Daniel relaxes slightly, "Well, that's good."

The General makes a sound (and she has to think of him as the General, since it's pretty clear he doesn't want anything else to do with her), and she glances at him. "Sir?"

"Cut the sir, Carter." He looks down at the pen, "You were calling me Jack."

"Yeah." She wants him to meet her eyes. When he doesn't, she glances away and finds Daniel looking at them both with an odd expression. "So. How's the SGC been since I ended up in a different universe?"

"Oh, there's been a few crises. Saved the world, I think, once, twice? Jack, you'll have to remind me." Daniel shifts, "And, of course, we lost people, too."

"Like Teal'c," she whispers, misplaced guilt filling her. If she'd been faster at finding the quantum mirror. If she'd just -- gone through, instead of waiting longer. If, if, if. A thousand ifs, and she can't take them back or change them, so this is her reality.

"Carter, that --" the phone rings, and Jack glares at it. "O'Neill. Yes, sir. Uh-huh. Uh-huh." He looks at her, "Over my dead body, sir. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Thank you, sir." He drops the red phone back into the cradle. "Carter, you've officially been hired as a civilian contractor to the SGC. Your duties will include being co-commander of the science geeks." He pauses, "And my liaison with that department."

This, she thinks, she can handle. "Good to know, sir."

"Stop that, Carter."

"Yes. Jack."

A slight smile touches his lips, then is gone. "Daniel. You're in charge of the archeologists as of today. And Dr. Svetlana Markhov will be joining the SGC in a week to be Carter's co-commander."

"What about the NID, General?" Jonas is fidgeting.

"The President understands our position, and they will not be allowed access to Carter." A smirk crosses Jack's face. "Seems he don't like them anymore than we do."

"Good." She shouldn't feel so relieved. "So. What now?"

"Now, Colonel, we take you home, and help you clean and dust. And tomorrow, Cassie will be coming back from school for the weekend, and we're throwing a barbecue." The General stands, "Walter!"

"Sir." The bespectacled figure of O'Neill's secretary-cum-assistant appears in the doorway.

"My calendar is cleared, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. See that it stays that way."

-

It's not supposed to be this easy, she thinks. Of course, it isn't. Standing on her back porch three days after getting her final orders, she can feel the wind whispering along her skin. The wind that belongs to her reality feels different. Or maybe that's simply wishful thinking. So much to take in at once. She is home. Teal'c is dead, Janet, too. And she is pregnant with a child she didn't have any involvement in conceiving.

She would laugh if she didn't think she would break into a thousand pieces while doing so.

"Carter?"

"What did I do to Cassie, Jack?" Her voice almost breaks. But she is tired of crying, and so she controls it.

"I'm not sure --"

"Don't lie."

He sighs, and a hand settles on her shoulder. "The other you, I think... I'm not sure. But you and Cassie need to talk, Carter. This can't stay like this."

"Why not?"

"Because it isn't fair."

She turns and looks at him. "What, like you sleeping with her isn't fair?"

The stiffness in his features makes her want to claw the words back, but this isn't about being nice. On some level, it's about being honest. "Look, Carter --"

"Just don't. You fucked her, and you're not sorry. Ok? I get it, Jack. I get it so much it hurts."

"I didn't want it to be like this."

Her laugh is ragged, "At least that's honest."

"So is this."

The kiss is anything but sweet. They're both angry and full of pain and bitterness. She almost bites his lip as she twists against his mouth.

This is routine, she thinks dimly.

She has wanted this man for ten years, off and on, give or take. He is the talisman which kept her sane in a universe not her own. And yet, the kiss is almost routine (clashing teeth and all), her hands threading into his hair, tugging it into peaks and valleys, feels normal. Stretching her body against him, languidly gasping as his hand goes up her shirt -- all of it feels like something she does every day.

There is passion, but it reminds her of sitting up late at night, staring at the stars.

Something remote, to be touched gently and then left.

The movement of his hand against her skin is rough, but sure. He draws his fingers up her body and cups her breast, moving his thumb swiftly over her nipple.

A moan breaks from her throat, and she jerks away, gasping.

"Carter --"

"Shut up." Her lips reclaim his, and she pushes against him, grinding her hips into his as fire licks along her nerves from where his fingers are. This is not routine anymore. This is Jack O'Neill, and she has waited more than ten months to get back to him and fuck him until he begs for mercy. She doesn't care anymore about her career, or whether he screwed another version of herself. She just wants him, something that, for a tiny moment in time, will be hers.

He breaks away long enough to mumble, "Bedroom?"

The request is sane, she thinks. It's probably better to have sex in her bed, instead of out here in the cool air, where her neighbors might look over the tall fence. But she doesn't want him in her bed, yet. She wants to claim him as hers, out here. Where she's certain the other her didn't have him. There are very few things she understands about the other Sam Carter, one of them is that semi-public sex was probably not something she did.

Still. "Where did she have you go?"

The question is awkward, and he shifts, "Um. Bed."

"Ah." Her hand goes down the front of his pants. "I don't want to fuck you in her bed."

A groan escapes him, and she finds herself pressed into the railing. This isn't bad, and she arches into him, relishing the feel of him against her.

By the time her pants are around her ankles, she's already wet, her body begging for this release. The first time he thrusts into her, she almost screams at the way it feels. Alive. She is alive, and he is alive. And his skin is soft to the touch.

This is life, she thinks, as he lifts her slightly, adjusting the angle. She worries about his knees for a moment, then is lost as his mouth fastens on one of her nipples.

She doesn't remember her shirt being off, but the cool air brushing her skin is raising goose bumps. The added sensation makes her writhe, one leg coming up to wrap around his waist, the other keeping her balanced as she arches against the railing. He switches breasts, and slows down, the rhythm becoming disjointed and almost wrong. "Harder." Her voice breaks on a moan.

"Too much," he manages.

Before she can ask, he is coming inside of her, grunting against her breast.

The silence is immediate, and they stand there, his cock buried inside of her, slowly softening, semen beginning to slide out of her. "Carter, I..."

A laugh escapes her, broken and brittle, and then she is shaking against him, not crying. She is not crying. And this is not funny. It's not funny, she thinks as he lowers them down and slides two fingers into her. The action is sharp and she suddenly stops, her breath cut off as his lips close on a nipple again.

It doesn't take him long, and she's almost frightened by the intensity of her orgasm. But then, ten months without sex is enough to make anyone come hard.

When she drifts back, he's moving down her body, lips and tongue leaving wet trails across her flesh, and then his mouth is where his thumb was. "Jack --" Her breath catches and her hips move against him.

This time, he is slow, then fast, then slow until she is begging for release, her voice taut with need. His fingers move inside of her even slower until the excruciating precision is too much and she breaks into a hundred thousand pieces, his name on her lips. She didn't used to think she was one to cry out when she came. But she's accepting of the change.

He moves, until he is settled next to her, his head on her shoulder. There is something self-satisfied about him.

"You're mine," she says, sitting up abruptly and turning to look down at him.

"There was ever a question?"

"Maybe. Pete -- I... I was settling, for Pete."

"Yep."

Honesty, she thinks, is raw and open. And painful. "I'm not even sure I like you."

"Well, I definitely like you." His hand slides down her side, making her shiver. "I like your mind and your lips and your brain, and your legs, and the way you make me incoherent because I have no fucking clue what you just techno babbled at me."

"You like me." She half-smiles, "I suppose that's a start."

"And your porch is cold and hard." He makes a face, "Can we move this inside, Carter? I'm old."

"I know."

They help each other up, taking advantage of the situation to grope and kiss -- and lick, at least once -- until they're moving slowly towards her back door.

"So... You're going to be okay with all of this?"

She stops inside and looks back at him, knowing he can't quite see her eyes. "Yes." And it's a lie. But it can become the truth. She just has to want it enough.

-- 


	8. Epilogue

See Chapter one for disclaimers and notes

EPILOGUE

It's not all wine and roses. It takes over three months to heal the rift between Sam and Cassandra. And even then, it's slow going. Sam because she's changed, and Cassie, because she knows that Sam has thought the painful things that were said to her.

Jack, Daniel and Jonas wisely stay out of it, only providing shoulders for both women to lean on (no tears, from Sam. She never seems to have them anymore), and the occasional beer.

The science department makes several breakthroughs under the double leadership of Drs. Sam Carter and Svetlana Markhov. General O'Neill continues to pretend he has no clue what they're talking about, although he sometimes talks in his sleep, so Sam knows better.

On the memorial of Teal'c's death at the hands of a woman she is not, Sam stands in front of a crowd and remembers her friend.

There isn't a dry eye in the house by the time she's done.

Daniel dies only once, but quickly comes back. Jack bans him from off-world travel until Sam has delivered her kid. That way, he'll have one person at his back to watch his ass. For her part, Sam is thrilled to learn that she'll be allowed to go off-world again (the Pentagon relented, with persuasion). Even if, at five months, she's already tired of being pregnant.

The return of Jacob Carter is met with fanfare, and careful relief. The Tok'ra have finally realized that they're stuck in their own ideologies. A rocky start to a new alliance, but it might help.

And while he isn't happy with her choice of men, Sam's dad does wish her the best of luck. And makes her promise not to name his grandbaby anything Tok'raish.

Elliot Martin Carter is born exactly nine months from the moment he was conceived (although Eggar isn't around to confirm this). He's a bouncing nine pounds, blue eyes, and light blonde hair. His three fathers dote on him, and his mother. Although only one of them sleeps with her.

By the time he is two months, his mother is glad there's someone else in the house. Through late-night feedings, early morning meetings, and boring late-afternoon briefings, she has come to realize that she knows both the best and worst there is to know about Jack O'Neill. And she doesn't want to give him back.

Five months after the birth of her child, Sam is cleared to begin going through the gate again. SG-1's team designation has lain dormant since she returned. It is now re-used. And Sam, Daniel and Jonas along with three other scientists in the Air Force comprise it.

They don't get into trouble.

She misses it.

Elliot says his first word the morning after the night Jack tells her he loves her. He thought she was asleep.

It's a good life. It's not the same as she had before, but she isn't sure that life would have been any better.

Besides, she's content.

And sometimes, late at night, she wonders if she is truly home. But then he'll do something to piss her off.

-finis-


End file.
